Meet the Elk | Acorn Electron Trash to Treasure

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Welcome to another Trash to Treasure series. This time we explore a donated Acorn Electron. As T2T series go this one isn't in bad shape at all. It obviously needs a good clean and we'll be taking precautions before firing her up.
Lets start by getting familiar with the system in part one.
● Series
Part 1 - Meet The Elk - • Meet the Elk | Acorn E...
Part 2 - Pre-Flight Checks - • Acorn Electron | Pre-F...
Part 3 - The Restoration - • Acorn Electron | Resto...
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Опубликовано:

14 окт 2024

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Комментарии : 57

@Dorelaxen 7 лет назад

So glad there are guys like you out there keeping these old gems alive.

@iancook1541 10 месяцев назад

In some ways, the Elk was leading the way, the Plus 3 expansion for example, providing Acorns ADFS (advanced Disk filing system), as opposed to the BBCs somewhat limited DFS. It also provided a 3.5" diskette drive, rather than the more common and less robust 5.25" drives as used with the Beeb.

@wolveric0 7 лет назад

Hope this channel goes to at least 500k subscribers, i get lost between all the useful information and the high quality production of the videos, thanks for sharing.

@GeoNeilUK 7 лет назад

True story, I've actually seen one of these control an indie brewery in 1992 as part of a High School Insight to Industry project! Seriously, their entire brewing process was controlled by an Acorn Electron! Though to be honest, they were mates of my physics teacher, so the fact they'd go for the cheaper BBC Micro shouldn't surprise me. But I was still blown away by the sight of an Elk running a brewery! Problem about the Acorn Electron having a real keyboard... so did the Commodore 64, though it didn't have BBC BASIC, it had a really limited, ancient version of Microsoft BASIC that was originally intended for the PET and had never been upgraded. I wonder what all the unpopulated pads on the Electron motherboard were for... MODE 7? (Teletext mode, nothing to do with the SNES) Isn't Steven Furber now at Nottingham Uni and appearing on the likes of Computerphile? Perhaps MS-DOS could have run on the BBC with an 80186 connected through the Tube Connector. There's something about this little Electron tha makes me want to see her working again!

@wisteela 7 лет назад

Yes, pretty sure he's on Computerphile.

@rog2224 6 лет назад

In the earlier revision (the one without the socketed ULA) there's an empty place for riser pins. Probably for some diagnostic, but it's not mentioned in the service manual.

@rog2224 6 лет назад

I did my BSc final dissertation programming on an Elk. It was handy that it was a little slower than the BEEB, since it meant if my work was acceptable on my home unit, it would look really good on the Uni's BBC suite boxes. BBC BASIC was really jolly good for matrix and vectoring calculations and the 32K limits could be worked around with some flashy memory page work and use of the chain command (basically, with a disk drive you could CHAIN in procedures into an area between user and graphics mappings as they were needed. the ADFS was surprisingly fast at reading.

@DJlegionuk 7 лет назад

This was my first computer while I was still at school. I spent a whole 6 weeks holiday playing elite and trying to write a version of the blockbusters tv show.

@Nav1g8r1 7 лет назад

I've only just discovered your YT page and instantly subscribed. Great content, quality video and audio. Five stars. Great

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

Thank you and welcome to the Cave. The Ryan Barry 5 star accolade is very much appreciated :)

@AtariFitness 7 лет назад

Nice! I used to own the BBC Micro B back in the day. Use to do programming and mod the games. For example: Have infinite lives.

@smittenthekitteninmittens2679 7 лет назад

The BBCmicro was my first computing experience as a child in primary school....then in secondary school it was on to the Archimedes line..

@immortalxgr 7 лет назад

Can't wait for the next part! Please keep doing those camera close ups; I haven't seen an Electron in person and that's as close as I can get to this beauty! For some reason, these weren't as highly successful as the Speccy/C64/Amstrad 464 trio, at least in my country (Greece).

@GeoNeilUK 7 лет назад

Have yoy ever seen a Speccy, C64 or CPC run a brewery? I haven't, only an Elk can do that :D

@KuraIthys 7 лет назад

Countries all had their own quirks. I was in the netherlands in the Early 90's and ended up with secondhand 8 bit micros... In my case the only ones I've ever owned were both Atari 800XL (I had two because they were being sold as lots with a huge amount of games. So for the sake of that I ended up with a green monochrome monitor, a plotter, two tape drives, and two of the systems.) Aside from recently at a game show with a retro area, the only systems I've seen in person and seen in action, because a friend of mine had them, were a c64, Amiga 500, and an Amiga 2000 I also know my uncle, who was some kind of musician had an Atari ST, which I've seen lying around, but never seen in action... It's one of those things I guess. I had a lot of exposure to computers because of my mother's jobs... But the vast majority of those were PC's... Most of the 8 bit systems were also somewhat before my time, really...

@TheRetroShed 6 лет назад

Great vid! Love the Electron. Had some great times on my friends one playing Starship Command :)

@RECORDthenRETURN 7 лет назад

Nice to see another Electron being restored. Looking forward to seeing part 2.

@alpharisc 7 лет назад

Your videos are extremely professional, always like watching!

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

Thank you! and Welcome to the cave, I'm glad you enjoy them

@philipcooper8297 7 лет назад

The Electron was the ''feck you Sinclair'' computer, design by his former employee who left/was fired for having different ideas about what the ZX Spectrum and its successors were supposed to be like.

@wisteela 7 лет назад

Great old computers. I've got several, including one to which I've added the Plus 1 and Plus 3.

@kurbeco 5 лет назад

Regarding the ULA. I think the Issue 1 was soldered, the Issue 4 was socketed and then the Issue 6 was back to being soldered

@leberkassemmel 6 лет назад

acorn. Rest In Peace. Your legacy shall live on in every Acorn RISC Machines CPU. I know, they changed the meaning of ARM long ago, still, this was the source.

@batteriesrequired9401 7 лет назад

I had one of these in the 80s. My dad was addicted to sphinx.

@saarek 7 лет назад

This little machine really needs your cares.

@art0000t 7 лет назад

I got an Electron so I could play the adventure space game 'Elite'. To me it was one of those games (A type novel in the 80s) at the time was worth buy the computer just for that game.

@sunnohh 7 лет назад

Love the series!

@reggiep75 7 лет назад

I was confused for a second expecting pt2 but saw pt1 and looked again and saw HD fixed... Doooooh. Any vague time frame for Pt 2's arrival?

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

+reggiep75 it's usually a week or so between episodes, I've had some kind contributions towards pt2 which I'm waiting for in the post whilw I clean it up so a little tricky to say. Lot's of other videos to come in the meantime

@mapesdhs597 7 лет назад

Thanks for this! Are you going to Retrobright the plastics? I bought some BBlonde and another brand to clean up my Electron cases, but I'm leaving the procedure until next year, sun too low in the sky now for decent exposure during the day, blocked by houses, trees, etc. Btw, do you happen to know what the most likely fault source is for an Electron with a bad display, but the ULA is ok? (checked by swapping the ULA with another system) I was thinking one of the RAM chips maybe. I agree with you about the RAM access modification, that would definitely have been the right thing to do before launch. Do you have any references to example speed tests showing the difference the mod makes? Lastly, which addons have you acquired? The Plus 1 is easy to find, but I managed to obtain a Plus 3, Plus 5, and the Music 500 system, etc. Do mention the Data Centre aswell, I have one which can be used with both the Beeb and the Electron. Ian.

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

RAM sounds like the next place to check certainly. I have been offered a Plus 1 and a modern SD Card reader solution which I hope will turn up for pt.2. I haven't seen any definitive speed tests only that it can access at 2mhz instead of 1mhz. Some sources suggest the same CPU operates up to 6 times faster in the BBC B with the better RAM access. Thanks for the tips on the additional addons I'll certainly be looking into them. Retrobriting I'm not sure on yet, it obviously needs a clean and then I'll asses its colour compared to the original shade and see if it needs it. I do have a UV light if so.

@mapesdhs597 7 лет назад

If it's a RAM chip maybe it would be better to replace the ICs with sockets as the testing proceeds, make future testing/replacement easier. Hmm. Good to hear about the Plus 1 and SD reader! Will you be covering how the speed mod is done later? Might try it myself. I was attempting to write 3D programs back in the 80s, really pushed what the machine was capable of (hidden surface removal), the math kills it for sure. I used machine code in various ways, but a generally faster machine would be sweet. I remember asking my math teacher questions about the line equations of intersecting planes, questions he couldn't answer. :D Hmm, a UV light... a possibility! Think I'd rather use ye olde sun though. :D I can wait, the system has been patient so far. I have numerous units, but the main one I want to clean, the faulty unit, is my own original Electron. The other is just another unit I'm going to clean to compare the alternative hair bleaching product, see if the 3X higher cost of BBlonde is worth the expense. This is Bblonde btw: www.echemist.co.uk/media/product/jerome-russell-bblonde-maximum-lift-blonding-kit-hr.jpg Kinda funny btw, I bought my box in Tesco, ended up conversing with a woman about the difficulty of choosing which one to buy. She was waxing lyrical about hair issues of course; I didn't have the heart to tell her I wanted to clean up 35 year old plastics. :D Ian. PS. Here's my collection, at least as it was a few years ago: www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/vintage_Dec2012.zip

@Objectorbit 7 лет назад

You mention the RF modulator being the same as the Spectrum's. Is it literally the same model? Or is it functionally identical?

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

Objectorbit it looks identical to me. Check this to see it in the spectrum ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oTEMnYnLlpQ.html

@markloughtonUK 7 лет назад

Does anyone remember that interflora used these throughout their network to transfer orders etc ? :)

@9uuuu 7 лет назад

Dangit I saw this in my sub box and I thought for a moment part 2 had come out

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

Sorry! Working on it :)

@wrestletube1 6 лет назад

The problem is as a home market BBC the electron became not very relevent nowadays as due to it not being professional used still school grade anymore BBC Micros are going to the homes now in retro gaming era.

@alexsinclair2012 7 лет назад

Bernie Saunders @ 4:48

@IljaSara 7 лет назад

Dang. Reupload was needed after all.

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

Ilja Sara sadly yes, a few cut/paste replies from support later I decided to cut my losses and reupload.

@AlastairMontgomery 7 лет назад

I had most of those games :)

@sarreqteryx 7 лет назад

is that John Noble in that ad?

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

Sarreq Teryx no that's Stanley Baxter

@johndoe9536 6 лет назад

Helloo, Love the channel! Been subscribed for a bit. or is that a byte :) Was hoping someone can help me find "Dry Film Adhesive" used to "glue" the pad on a PCB back down. I know that an epoxy is available that can resist the temps of soldering but it seems expensive and a bit messy. Was replacing the caps on an Amiga and one of the pads lifted ! Doh. Any help greatly appreciated. P.S. I also need an Acorn Electron Transformer brick if anyone can help out ! I notice someone has two ! :)

@cjmillsnun 7 лет назад

Do you have a PO Box or something I can forward the plus one to. As I assume your comment about being offered one was a reference to my comment in your original video. EDIT. Thanks for the email. I'll try and get it out to you this weekend.

@MartinKidd 7 лет назад

But the HD shows up the dirt even more!

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

Martin Kidd well it's your dirt!!!

@MartinKidd 7 лет назад

I know! I hate seeing it, clearly that one got used more than the first one I had as that one is nowhere near as dirty but sadly not working. I really should crack that open soon and see what it was that died in it.

@johnkortink8133 7 лет назад

It looks like it's had a horrible accident, involving spaghetti sauce. But it makes a great 'before' picture.

@jamestravill9640 7 лет назад

Clean it? 😷

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

James Travill Trash to Treasure... thats what we do best in these series :)

@jamestravill9640 7 лет назад

RetroManCave I don't think I could have touched it with all that human gravy on it..

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

James Travill hehe nasty isn't it, I'll take one for the team and have her shining in the next episode fear not

@aljr357 7 лет назад

Would the bbc micro play the games from the elk.

@RMCRetro 7 лет назад

allan fulton Generally Electron games are re-written BBC titles. It was common for a game released for both machines would have the BBC version on one side of the cassette, and the Electron on the other. Trying to run the Elk version on the BBC would normally work, but would often be faster, usually too fast to play.

@aljr357 7 лет назад

RetroManCave thanks.